“And I still say that!” I replied heatedly. “Hippocrates says that diseases have natural causes, and that nothing happens without a natural cause. And your great god Asklepios was just a man; Homer doesn’t talk about him as though he were a god, and he ought to know. Asklepios was no more a god than . . . than Hadrian’s boyfriend Antinoos, who got deified by decree of the Roman Senate!”
Nikias flushed and started to get up; Theogenes caught his arm. “Calm down,” he said. “Chariton’s just shaken by what happened. You pay for the wine, Chariton: you know it’s against the rules to discuss religion.”
I went red in my turn, and tipped some coins out onto the table. “I’m sorry,” I told Nikias. “I was entirely to blame for saying that. You worship your idea of divinity, and I’ll worship mine.” Nikias nodded rather stiffly. I got up. “I’ve got to get home; I have some drugs to prepare,” I told the others, and started out. Theogenes jumped up as well.
“I’m supposed to reread Hippocrates’ text on fractures,” he announced. “Adamantios says that I set bones as though I were grafting fig trees, and wants me to go back to basics. Come on, Chariton, I’ll go with you as far as the Broucheion quarter.”
It was dark outside the tavern, the only light coming from the windows of the houses about us and the quarter moon in the hazy sky. We paused, letting our eyes adjust after the lamplight. “You’ve been very bad-tempered lately,” Theogenes told me. “It’s not like you to get into religious arguments. Though Nikias deserves it.”
I shrugged. My friends’ curiosity about me made me feel extremely uneasy. Picking quarrels with them seemed the easiest way out, but now I was ashamed of myself. And Theophila had asked me to sound Theogenes out about his intentions, a mission that made me uncomfortable and unhappy. “I was to blame,” I repeated. “I said I was sorry.” I started down the road, picking my way through the piles of dung and the rubbish tipped into the street. Theogenes hurried after me, stepped in a dung heap, and swore softly. I stopped while he wiped his sandal off on the stones.
“The archbishop guessed something that worried you, didn’t he?” Theogenes asked. “Are you really a slave? Is that what he found out?”
“No! I am freeborn and was raised as a free person. Just let it alone, will you?”
“Sorry.” Theogenes started walking again. “I just meant to say that I didn’t care if it was true, you’re still a better doctor than I or the others in there ever will be.”
“Oh my friend!” I exclaimed, ashamed again. “You shouldn’t say things like that when I’ve behaved badly. But thank you for the kindness.”
We walked on in silence for a minute, then I said, “Theophila was talking about you this afternoon.”
I sensed rather than saw the smile. “What did she say?” Theogenes asked eagerly.
I watched the dark ground before my feet. Theophila had been unhappy about her request as well, fidgeting, clasping her hands together, and finally speaking with an earnest uncertainty quite different from her usual cheerful enthusiasm. “She said she wished she knew whether or not you were serious. She said she thought she was falling in love, really in love, with you, and she was frightened.”
“Oh,” said Theogenes in a different voice. There was another minute of silence, and then he said, “Dear little Theophila! I shouldn’t visit so often.”
“Then you’re not serious?” I said, caught between surprise and anger. “She ought to be told.”
Theogenes kicked at a heap of donkey dung. “Of course I’m serious! The person I need to convince is my father. I wrote him last autumn, when I first began to get serious. You see, Chariton, he wanted me to marry some girl in Antioch; I think he’d even approached her father about it. I wrote him about Theophila, and told him all about Philon’s learning and saintliness, and informed him that there wouldn’t be any dowry to speak of but that the girl was as sweet as any girl alive, and devout, and a doctor’s daughter, who knew what to expect from her husband, and I was in love with her. And I’ve been waiting for a reply ever since. I suppose it’s been delayed because of the winter; I swear I’ve been meeting every ship that comes from Antioch, trying to see if anyone’s got a letter for me. If my father’s absolutely opposed to the match, I can’t go ahead with it: I’ve got to obey him, haven’t I? It’s in the Law. But I think — I hope — he’ll give his consent. I’m just waiting for that before I talk to Philon.”
“Oh,” I said in turn. We reached the Canopic Way. We were near the end of the Tetrapylon, and it was early enough that the shops were still open: the street glowed with lights and people. “Can I tell Philon that you’re waiting for your father’s consent?” I asked Theogenes after a moment. “They’re beginning to wonder, you see. He wouldn’t officially have to know, but it would make everyone feel better. And if your father doesn’t give his consent, they’ll understand that you haven’t just been playing with them.”
“Oh Lord! Yes, by all means tell Philon. And Theophila. But I hope my father will agree. It’s good spring weather; I should get a letter soon.”
We parted near the church of Alexander — parted warmly. I walked the rest of the way back thinking of Theogenes and Theophila. I no longer felt resentful of or angry with them. They were really in love now, and all I could do was hope that their love would find a happy end.
Theogenes received the letter from his father in May; he showed it to me. It was cautious, disapproving of the match, but concluded, “If you feel you must marry this girl, then you must. Let me know, and I will write to her father on your behalf. But I hope that you have considered your standing and your dignity, and have already put her from your thoughts.”
Theogenes was rapturous. He pulled me out of a lecture in the morning to tell me, and appeared at Philon’s for supper, carrying a present of an amber necklace for Theophila. He beamingly asked to speak to Philon, and they went upstairs to the master bedroom for a few minutes and then came down smiling. Philon called all the house into the main room, then took Theophila and put her hand in Theogenes’. “My dearest,” he told her, “Theogenes has asked my permission to marry you, and I have given my consent to the match.”
Theophila went crimson. She looked at Philon with radiant eyes, then looked up Theogenes, aflame with happiness. He beamed again, and kissed her.
Of course it took some time to arrange the details of the betrothal. Theogenes wrote to his father, and his father wrote back, to him and to Philon, and Philon had a contract drawn up, and Deborah (overjoyed to see her daughter so well established) busied herself weaving and sewing the trousseau. But eventually a date was set: the new moon before the fast of Esther, a lucky time — early spring. “A long time to wait,” said Theogenes with a groan. “But at least I know I have something to wait for.” And he set himself again to the study of the art of healing. “After all,” he told me, “I’ll soon have a wife to support!”
There was still no rioting that spring, not even at Easter, when the duke of Egypt went to the cathedral and left half his troops standing outside it to keep order. I went to that service; I had started going to the cathedral when I could, to hear what Athanasios had to say. For the first time I understood why the monks were so frightened. Those troops were drawn up, armed and armored, to punish the congregation if there was any trouble. People had been killed by them in riots before. There had been long episodes of violence several times since Athansios had taken the episcopal throne. Athanasios had certainly been a firebrand as a young man, but he was far from that now, and still the authorities clearly saw him as an enemy. He preached about peace that Easter, urging it on the congregation so passionately and eloquently that they came out of the cathedral almost ready to embrace the waiting soldiers, who didn’t know what to make of it. He preached about peace quite a lot, but also about struggle, about the need for courage and resolution; it was quite plain that he too expected trouble.
I also bought the archbishop’s theological work, On the Incarnation, and read that when I wasn’t
busy. I was busy most of the time, so I read it slowly. “Life is short and the art long” — I suppose that this aphorism of Hippocrates’ really refers to the length of time it can take for a remedy to have any effect, but it seemed to me to apply very well to the amount of time it takes to learn anything. A doctor must know the symptoms of all the different diseases, and when to apply the remedies; he must know something about the different airs and waters which can carry diseases, and how best to guard the public health; he must know anatomy and surgery; he must be able to recognize the different medicinal herbs and prepare simples from them and calculate the correct dose. The more I learned, the more ignorant I seemed to myself. And then I realized that the most learned doctors are ignorant, and disagree among themselves not only over theories but over things that should be easily decided, like the function of the liver or the uses of bloodletting or black hellebore. And so often all art is useless, and the doctor might just as well tip his books and drugs in the sewer, for all the good they do.
“Can’t we do anything?” I asked Philon one night in August, coming home after a patient died. “We’re scarcely better than those quacks who try to cure with charms and incantations!”
“Well, we at least try to do no harm where we can do no good,” Philon said. “And we try to follow and support nature. And sometimes we have cures. But it is true, it is hard to say when a patient has survived because of us and when he might have survived anyway. More die without a doctor than with one, though, and that’s not true of charms and incantations.”
I tried to smile, but I felt very low. The patient had been a young woman with an enteritic fever and an infection in the bladder. She had been about my age and apparently strong, dearly loved by her husband and her family, with a new little baby crying for her; and still she had suffered and died. “We know nothing,” I said bitterly.
“No,” said Philon. “We know a little. There is a great difference between knowing nothing and knowing a little. When you know a little, you do not guess blindly and invoke magical powers. We are still in the hands of God, but we have some knowledge of our limits.”
“Tonight I feel that my limits should be the walls of my own house. What’s the use of studying the art, if you can’t help anyone for all your study?”
“We can help. We just can’t promise a cure.” Philon sighed and changed the subject. “When are you going to take your examination, Chariton? Or don’t you mean to?”
That jerked me out of my depression. “What do you mean? I’ve only just started studying the art.”
“It’s been what, nearly two and a half years now since you joined me? That’s true, it’s not long. But you’ve gone at it like a starving peasant at a banquet, and you’ve a good memory. You’d pass your examination tomorrow. Don’t look so alarmed: they don’t ask you to cure anyone. You simply face a panel who ask you questions about the medical writers and about different treatments and diseases. You now know everything that everyone can agree upon, and they can’t examine you on controversial theories or on experience. They can’t teach you much more, up at the Temple. You’re already notorious for picking holes in other people’s theories, and the other day Adamantios told me that if you go on, they’ll all conclude that nobody knows anything, which is a fine waste of scholarship. Though he’d like you to stay in Alexandria: he says you’re stimulating company.”
I laughed. When an Alexandrian says someone is “stimulating company,” it means he argues with him all the time.
Philon smiled, understanding my amusement, but went on seriously. “You shouldn’t go on paying them fees — or, come to that, paying me fees, either.” We walked a few more paces, then he added softly, “Though I should be very sorry to lose you.”
“I’d feel lost without you,” I told him. “I don’t have any experience. I would be afraid to do anything if I couldn’t confer with you about it. I might kill someone.”
Philon laughed. “That’s not true. You’ve already treated people on your own. And any doctor might kill someone by getting a dose wrong. Although . . .” He stopped again, then stood still in the middle of the street, looking at me and pulling on his lip. Then he shrugged. “Well, I will put it to you: feel free to turn me down. In fact, perhaps you should turn me down. You’re very gifted, and probably have a brilliant career before you, and I don’t want to hold you back. But if you’d like to stay with me, for a few more years anyway, as a partner, I would be very pleased.”
“Ai!” I exclaimed, like a washerwoman who’s been pinched. I felt embarrassed, overwhelmed by Philon’s offer. “You shouldn’t say such things,” I said at last. “You are an experienced and expert doctor, one of the best in Alexandria, and I am an ignorant student who has never been totally honest with you. I have no intention of taking the examination until I know a bit more about medicine.”
“I don’t want to disappoint you,” Philon said, smiling, “but there isn’t much more that anyone but experience can teach you.” He started walking again. “Think about my offer.”
We arrived back at the house to find Deborah and the slaves in a state of great agitation. Theophila was peering from the top of the stairs, and a stranger was sitting at the table, tapping it impatiently with his fingers; the gesture at once drew attention to his official looking signet rings. He appeared to be a few years younger than Philon, and was clean-shaven and dark-haired. He was well dressed in a yellow tunic and fine orange cloak. He leaped up when we came in. “Chariton of Ephesus?” he demanded, staring at me. He had an educated Alexandrian voice, an accent carefully modulated but with the underlying singsong rhythm of Egypt.
“Yes,” I replied, undoubtedly sounding nervous; I could think of no reason for this sudden descent by an official, unless Festinus had discovered something. “What is it?”
“I am Theophilos, a deacon of the church of the Alexandrians. Our father the most pious Athanasios wishes to see you at once,” said the stranger. “Please come with me. And hurry.”
“Why does the archbishop want him?” Philon demanded, looking anxious and angry. “What claim does the archbishop have on him? He’s been hard at work all day, he’s —”
The other hit the table. “Stop talking! His Holiness is ill; we want any doctor that he’s willing to see, and he’s willing to see this eunuch and no other. Now come. As for you, Jew, this news is not to be spread about the city. We don’t want trouble, and there’ll be bloodshed if it gets out.”
Everyone gaped, and I clutched my medical bag. Theophilos gestured impatiently for me to follow him, and plunged out the door. I looked back at Philon and his family standing there in the dining room with their jaws hanging, then waved to them and went after him. Oh Divine Lord, I thought, running down the street, do I start my career as the doctor that killed the archbishop of Alexandria?
Athanasios had pneumonia. He’d had it for several days by the time I was called, but had suppressed the news for fear of causing a riot. By the time I reached him he was very weak, still lucid but with a glazed, exhausted look, the nose sharp, the eyes and temples sunken, the skin very dry — all bad signs. But he smiled when he saw me. His lungs were quite congested, and he had to struggle to breathe at all; he couldn’t speak.
He was lying in a great canopied bed in a large, formally impersonal bedroom, his limp, shrunken body looking like a doll accidentally abandoned among the finery. He was surrounded by a huge throng of people — monks, priests, deacons, a couple of nuns, all the slaves in the episcopal palace, one or two bishops from elsewhere in Egypt. Some of them were sitting in one corner of the bedroom, praying and lamenting; the others were hanging over the archbishop and arguing about what to do to help him, when they weren’t pressing him to arrange various church affairs. I turned most of them out of the room on the spot. Then I had the rest close the windows and fetch some braziers and water to fill the room with steam. I got a few cupping glasses and applied them to Athanasios’ chest to loosen the phlegm, and I gave him oxymel and some horehound and ir
is root, which is good for the lungs. He began coughing and brought up a lot of watery phlegm, and then he was sick and brought up some of the oxymel and a little green bile, and then he coughed some more. His fever rose and his pulse became erratic, but it seemed to me that he was breathing more easily, so I persisted with the steam but ceased the cupping. The attendants wanted me to bleed him or give him purgatives, but it is not good to bleed old or exhausted people. Bleeding is good for those of middle age, particularly if they have a choleric disposition, and leeches on the temples will cure a headache, but otherwise I think bleeding is done mainly to impress upon lay people that the doctor is active. And purgatives won’t help a man to breathe.
After much coughing Athanasios fell asleep, exhausted. His extremities stayed warm: a good sign. He was a strong man, but he was in very bad condition: old, and emaciated from years of asceticism. As soon as the attendants saw that he was asleep, they became terrified that he would die without naming his successor. The ones I’d thrown out came back in, and wanted to wake him up and have him name one on the spot. But I told them that I thought he would recover if they would only leave him alone, and I threw them out again. This time I turned everybody out, so that no one could be offended, and then I settled down to watch the sick man.
As soon as I was alone with my patient, my hands started shaking and I had to sit down and struggle for control of myself. It had been easy to seem confident when I was actually doing things. A doctor gets used to pretending more than he feels; he has to, to keep his patients happy. And you always feel at least something of what you act. But now, on my own, I was terrified. I was not yet twenty, not qualified, and here I was responsible for the treatment of the most powerful man in the city, only because he knew my secret and so felt that he could trust me. What if he dies? I asked myself, and clasped my hands together to keep them still.
The Beacon at Alexandria Page 16
